Why does Dairy Queen sell food?
from sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 03:49
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/27614679

Isn’t it supposed to be ice creams and milkshakes and stuff?

#nostupidquestions

threaded - newest

peteyestee@feddit.org on 17 Jun 03:55 next collapse

Can someone from England ask her?

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:22 collapse

Ask who?

kobra@lemmy.zip on 17 Jun 05:53 collapse

The Queen of Dairy I presume

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 15:25 next collapse

Maybe she lives in Jersey with the cows there?

peteyestee@feddit.org on 17 Jun 17:14 collapse

The queen of England IS the Dairy Queen. C.R.E.A.M.

AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 03:59 next collapse

They’ve got to do something with the cows once they’re too old to milk.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 04:21 next collapse

That makes too much sense :/

ViatorOmnium@piefed.social on 17 Jun 04:43 collapse

And they need to do something with calves. Cows only produce milk after giving birth, and dairy producers are not going to keep a freeloader around. /s

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 04:46 collapse

That’s the veal industry

RestlessNotions@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 04:01 next collapse

Salty and sweet, man! Clearly you’ve never dipped fries into a milkshake. Your lack of life experience is concerning.

DreamAccountant@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 04:26 next collapse

Maybe they’re English. Nobody there thinks that they should dip their chippies in a frozen creamydoodle.

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 09:18 collapse

Because no one should do that. It seems super gross (and I’m American)

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:03 collapse

I would never do that to a French Fry.

Kolanaki@pawb.social on 17 Jun 04:02 next collapse

Is ice cream not food?

DreamAccountant@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 04:23 collapse

As a solid? Yes.

As a liquid? Maybe.

As a gas? No.

Kolanaki@pawb.social on 17 Jun 04:25 collapse

As a gas?

Well now I want to see the next evolution of Dippin Dots: Air-Scream.

kautau@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 07:01 collapse

Coming to a vape near you

Default_Defect@midwest.social on 17 Jun 04:13 next collapse

Same reason you can get ice cream from other fast food places.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:03 collapse

At least the other fast food places don’t have names like “Ben &Jerry” or “Baskin Robbins”

Default_Defect@midwest.social on 17 Jun 05:18 collapse

Burger King sells stuff that isn’t burgers, taco bell sells more than tacos.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:20 collapse

They aren’t ice cream stores though…

TheDoozer@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 17:35 collapse

They’re certainly not ice cream/soft serve stores, but here we are.

Rivalarrival@lemmy.today on 17 Jun 04:15 next collapse

DQ has surprisingly good chili dogs. Their burgers aren’t bad, if you omit the ketchup.

Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 15:51 collapse

Their chicken tenders are some of the best fast food tenders you can get too. Plus they come with sourdough toast

Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de on 17 Jun 04:34 next collapse

Once upon a time there were two types of Dairy Queens. Some were just ice cream, but the ones called “Dairy Queen Braizer” sold hot food too. Eventually they all sold hot food.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 04:40 collapse

Thanks for the actual answer!

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 04:47 collapse

I mean, it’s not an actual answer. It’s just a historic fact.

The actual answer is that diversifying your product offerings gets you more business. People like desserts after eating a meal, so it makes sense to also sell that meal.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 04:48 collapse

Historic facts can be an answer.

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 04:50 collapse

But it’s not the answer to your question. The answer to your question is business/financially related.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 04:59 collapse

Not necessarily. It could be “Why does Dairy Queen sell food (unsaid part: when I expect it to only sell ice cream?”)

A: because it used to only sell ice cream in the past.

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 05:03 collapse

That’s not an answer to why, though. Only selling something in the past doesn’t explain why they do it now. Making more money is the real explanation.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:05 collapse

Why can just mean explain something that is unexpected. Which you did with the history lesson. It doesn’t have to answer causality.

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 05:09 collapse

The question “why” inherently requires reasoning as a response, though. If the answer had been, “DQs used to only serve ice cream, but the founder wanted to…” blah blah blah, that would be an answer.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:16 collapse

I disagree with your premise.

Why?

It didn’t used to be, but that’s how it is now.

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 05:32 collapse

It didn’t used to be, but that’s how it is now.

Doesn’t answer ‘why,’ though. ‘Why’ is asking for the reason it changed from only ice cream to ice cream and food.

You didn’t ask if DQ had changed from ice cream only to ice cream and food. You knew the answer to that. You were asking for the reason they made the change.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 15:23 collapse

I didn’t know that they used to not sell food. All I know is that I didn’t expect them to sell food.

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 04:46 next collapse

Dude, their burgers are awesome. It’s one of the few, if only fast food joints that still cook burgers on an actual flat top.

I just wish they hadn’t switched to the soggy as fuck steak cut fries.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 04:47 next collapse

How long have they been a fast food store? I thought they were an ice cream shop

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 04:59 next collapse

Like 30 years at least. They’re famous for their ice cream, but their burgers are great too.

There’s also the fact that DQs outside of Texas are slightly different than other states. Or at least that was true 15 years ago in Louisiana.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 05:01 next collapse

Wow

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 05:05 collapse

Yeah, I definitely remember eating DQ burgers in the 90s.

But like I said, it’s definitely possible that if you’ve only seen DQs outside of Texas, your experience might be different.

TheDoozer@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 17:47 collapse

There is a whole section to each DQ for Regional Menu. Some places will have Steak Fries, or… I can’t remember what else. In the North West (US) we had Ultimates and Deluxe burgers, which were the smaller patties (want to say 1/6lb), american cheese, and thousand island dressing (Ultimates were doubles and had bacon as well).

When I was at DQ School in Minneapolis, i got to meet store managers and owners from all over, and it was really interesting to learn all the regional fare (and apparently South American DQs, at least then, were purely Treat Centers, which is what I imagine OP was assuming they’d all be).

astrsk@fedia.io on 17 Jun 05:33 next collapse

They first started selling hamburgers in 1958.

The wiki has all the info you need.

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 09:17 next collapse

Decades and decades ago. Not remotely new. Your question was outdated 25 years ago.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 15:21 collapse

This is a Berenstain Bears moment for me…

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 15:29 collapse

lol

Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 01:44 collapse

1990’s? At least in Canada.

cattywampas@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 15:20 next collapse

Which fast food places are not using a flat top for burgers? Just Burger King?

entwine413@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 16:51 collapse

McDonald’s definitely doesn’t

cattywampas@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 17:08 collapse

They most definitely do, they use a clamshell flat top that cooks both sides at once.

youtu.be/IVRlYugm69Y

TheDoozer@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 17:42 collapse

That is entirely different store to store. The one I managed and our sister store (owned by the same family) used a conveyer belt style flame broiler (automatic broiler). Far more consistent and less labor intensive.

TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 04:46 next collapse

french fries and a blizzard is fucking fire

morphballganon@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 04:51 next collapse

Hot eats cool treats. That was the slogan 20 years ago. Get some chicken strips and a blizzard.

MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 17 Jun 05:34 next collapse

Dairy Queen has been selling food since 1958. They are not “an ice cream store” any more than McDonalds is

Chozo@fedia.io on 17 Jun 08:03 next collapse

Well only because the machine is always broken at McDonald's.

cattywampas@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 15:19 collapse

mcbroken.com

Also ymmv because my local McDonald’s always has a functioning ice cream machine!

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 15:24 collapse

This is insane to me, for some reason I thought they were an ice cream store.

twice_hatch@midwest.social on 17 Jun 18:00 collapse

The market bears what the market bears 🤷

geekwithsoul@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 05:42 next collapse

One other thing I haven’t seen mentioned is selling ice cream is only a sustainable business for a few months out of the year in many places. Whereas you can sell burgers/dogs/etc year-round. But yeah, as far as I know they’ve always sold fast food - their burgers were a fave of mine when I was a kid in the 70s.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 15:27 collapse

Wow that’s neat. There’s a Dairy Queen sort of near me, I’ve driven past it a million times, but I thought they only sold ice cream so I’ve never gone in.

Nemo@midwest.social on 17 Jun 07:15 next collapse

So you can get dinner and dessert at the same place.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Jun 15:23 collapse

This makes a lot of sense actually.

null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 17 Jun 09:25 next collapse

If you have n icecream shops in highly sought after retail locations where people are buying food, it would be kinda crazy not to sell food.

spongebue@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 11:39 next collapse

Here’s the fun part: while you’re all talking about their ice cream, technically it’s not legal to call their product that. You won’t see it anywhere on the menu. I think it has to do with the milk/cream/egg/sugar amounts? There may not be egg at all, but can’t remember for sure.

Anyway, all you’ll ever see on the menu is “soft serve”

cattywampas@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 15:15 next collapse

Ice cream has to be at least 10% butterfat and 20% milk solids according to the FDA.

DQ soft serve is 5% butterfat so would not legally qualify as ice cream, though it would qualify as low fat ice cream.

I do believe that most soft serve is a similar fat percentage, and also has much more air per volume than traditional ice cream.

Also, I must say as an ice cream aficionado, I do love me some soft serve and I would never disparage it by calling it “not real ice cream.”

spongebue@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 15:35 next collapse

Oh, for sure. Especially during pumpkin pie blizzard season. Plus they always seem to feed my FOMO with some other flavor so I go twice during that season alone

TheDoozer@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 17:34 collapse

Funny enough, the milk they use (at least the supplier to the store I managed) is nonfat milk. So the first listed ingedient is nonfat milk, and the second is milk fat, lol.

astrsk@fedia.io on 17 Jun 15:39 collapse

Yeah, soft serve is just frozen sugar milk, comes in cartons like regular milk and you can totally just drink it, tastes a bit like whole milk but clearly with an unhealthy amount of sugar in it.

Demonmariner@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 15:34 collapse

Define “food.”